Non-linear dynamics in entrepreneurial and management careers

Dramatic changes in 21st century careers have generated the need for a new set of theoretical lenses that view careers in a more dynamic, fluid way. Several characteristics of this new complexity lens that directly apply to dynamic career systems include discontinuities in career progression, non-proportionality of effects of effort, sensitive dependence on initial conditions, viewing a system in terms of constraints and triggers for change, and the impact of mutual causality of structural emergence. Two extensive case studies are presented and explained using these concepts, providing an expanded understanding of careers in management and in entrepreneurship.